A number of social apps have turned to the Play Store to manage their betas. We've already seen Facebook and Snapchat launch official beta versions to anyone who signs up for the privilege, and now Twitter is doing the same. If you've signed up for either of the other programs, the routine should feel pretty familiar. The experimental build will replace the current Twitter app on your phone, unlike the Chrome beta that can exist side-by-side with the stable release. Those who opt in will be greeted by a notification when the next build is ready. As this is a beta release, some features may never appear in the stable version, and some instability may appear that could eat your cat or infect your bed with bed bugs. Use at your own discretion.

Have fun, and if you want to send feedback, here's process for doing so.

Sending feedback

To give us your feedback or report bugs tap the Report a Bug feature under the ••• icon to bring up the off-screen menu.

Please make sure you include:

Steps to reproduce the issue you’re experiencing and

Connection type (Wifi or mobile network)

What should I do once I’ve joined the program?

Turn on automatic app updates for Twitter for Android by opening Google Play Store app > Settings > Check the box next to Auto-update apps

Install the new weekly updates that will include new experiments

Use the experiment app normally as if you are using the production version - if you are experiencing bugs, please report them to us through the Report A Bug button within the settings of the app.

For the latest updates and release notes, be sure to check the topics posted on this group [open for discussion, should we post a change log?]

Experiencing trouble?

Using the correct email address - It’s important that you join this Google Group with same the e-mail address associated with your Google Play Store account. To find out which email address you use, open the Play Store app and tap onMenu > Accounts.

Error 404 - If you see this error message, you either 1) haven’t joined this Google Group or 2) you joined the Google Group with a different email address than what’s currently used in your Google Play account.

Born and raised in the rural South, Bertel knows what it's like to live without 4G LTE - or 3G, for that matter. The only things he likes sweeter than his tea are his gadgets, and while few objects burn more than a metal phone on a summer day, he prefers them that way anyway.

Comments

Same here, but you "need" Twitter to see favorites, retweets, new followers, etc. Luckily, using both is easy enough.

johnforamerica

Yep! I can usually just wait until I get to a desktop browser for those, but good point!

numpty

True, but also luckily, very few people "need" to see those things. They're of no interest whatsoever to the majority of us who just want to follow some people and occasionally tweet something ourselves.

Nuno Guerreiro

bah.... Plume is way better!!! Plume rocks!!!

Jon L.

i use falcon pro too for browsing timeline, and use Twitter for notifications, drafts, trending, search. (basically anything other than browsing TL hehe)

ph0oky

Why does twitter refuse to put a scrollable tweet widget in their app? It's necessary!

hakan

Maybe because all their developers are actually iPhone users and they have no idea about the awesome stuff they could do with Android widgets.

This would be awesome. I use the Twitter widget a lot, but scrolling would make it a lot faster than the buttons they use now.

Also, they only cache so many tweets in the current widget. They could easily lazy-load more tweets once you get near the end of the list.

vs8

First thing I'll report is the awful two action bar UI this app uses. So unessesary.

Victor Stuber

What's wrong with it?

vs8

It takes too much space. Space that could be used for content.

They could use a navigation drawer for 'Discover', 'user profile', 'find people to follow'. By doing that you're freeing enough space in the blue action bar for the timeline and interactions icons.

You still could swipe from timeline to interactions, which are the most crucial tabs and free space for actual content.

The navigation drawer would make the current 'up' icon (the twitter icon that says 'Home' next to it on portrait but hides it in landscape for some unknown reason) smaller since it would remove the text.

Twitter just have to follow the Android designs guidelines a bit closer and their app automatically becomes better. ;)

miri

It's 2/3 of a tweet thick at worst, contributes to a unique "Twitter" aesthetic, gives you glance-able notifications of updates in each tab and a quick way to jump to the top of the feed and follows the guidelines to the letter. It's fine as it is.

vs8

You could still have glance able notifications, you could go to top by touching the icons on top, it would still have the twitter look, with the color and branding and best of all, it would be much more cleaner.
Not everyone has a big-ass phone.

Otto Prime

Hmm I'm being told I already have Twitter installed.

Has anyone been able to grab a "test" build? Maybe it's not out yet?

Rix

Same with me, no option to update

GreatNews

got the same problem!

Nuno Guerreiro

Probably cause they still haven't release any beta build...

Mr-Glass

Same here!

Guest

No test build available yet by the looks.

Guest

jjoj

Daniel McKenzie J. Traynor

No beta version available yet by the looks..

miri

Call me crazy, but I actually like the official twitter app; it's come a long way. It's clean, simple and honestly I think the third party apps are horrendously over designed.

Simon Belmont

I agree. The only thing I could ask for is better tablet support.

There's seriously some room for improvement on efficient use of screen space for tablets. Hoping they address this sooner, rather than later.

Mehmet Fatih

I agree, but they should add theme support or at least a black theme. Hate using it with full bright white theme, hurts my eyes at night.

Simon Belmont

I might give this a shot. The regular Twitter client has been pretty steadily improving lately.

So, being able to try some new features would be nice. Nice to see this.

http://wigasanggak.tumblr.com/ Wigas Angga K

the only reason I use the official app is the push notification feature.

El_Goog

I love the beta-testing thingy through Google+. Whoever had the idea, he/she deserves a big medal.